How Do Low-Literacy Populations Perceive “Dirty Bombs”? Implications for Preparedness Messages

Majority of the indigenous people who are the original inhabitants in Malaysia inhibit the remote area of tropical forest which is rich in natural resources. Their lives are separated from the outside community due to several factors such as geography, low literacy, negative perceptions of the surrounding community, and the closed-door attitude of the indigenous people. Consistent preaching activities have changed the faith of the indigenous people from animism orientation towards believing in the Oneness of God. The practice of Islam as a way of life in the lives of indigenous peoples is found to be difficult to practice because the fiqh approach presented to them does not celebrate their local condition. In this regard, this study will examine the socio-cultural isolation of indigenous peoples and their impact on the interpretation of Islamic law. To achieve this objective, the researchers have applied the library research method by referring to the literatures related to the discussion of Islamic scholars in various disciplines of fiqh and usūl al-fiqh. The research found that there is rukhsah and taysir approach given to isolated people as well as with local background to facilitate the religious affairs of the indigenous people. Abstrak Majoriti masyarakat Orang Asli yang merupakan penduduk asal di semenanjung Malaysia mendiami kawasan pedalaman di hutan hujan tropika yang kaya dengan khazanah alam. Kehidupan mereka terasing daripada masyarakat luar disebabkan beberapa faktor seperti geografi, kadar literasi yang rendah, pandangan negatif masyarakat sekitar dan sikap tertutup masyarakat Orang Asli. Gerakan dakwah yang dijalankan secara konsisten telah membawa perubahan kepercayaan sebahagian masyarakat Orang Asli daripada berorientasikan animisme kepada mempercayai Tuhan yang Esa. Pengamalan Islam sebagai cara hidup dalam kehidupan masyarakat Orang Asli didapati agak sukar untuk dipraktikkan lantaran pendekatan fiqh yang disampaikan kepada mereka tidak meraikan suasana setempat mereka. Sehubungan itu, kajian ini akan meneliti keadaan isolasi sosio-budaya masyarakat Orang Asli dan kesannya terhadap pentafsiran hukum Islam. Bagi mencapai objektif tersebut, pengkaji menggunakan kajian kepustakaan sepenuhnya dengan menelusuri literatur berkaitan dengan perbincangan sarjana Islam dalam pelbagai disiplin ilmu fiqh dan usul fiqh. Hasil kajian mendapati terdapat rukhsah dan pendekatan taysir diberikan kepada mereka yang hidup terasing serta berlatar belakang budaya setempat bagi memudahkan urusan keagamaan masyarakat Orang Asli.

Download Full-text

Readability of Informed Consent Forms: Analysis and Recommendations for Development of Consent Forms for Use with Communities with Limited or Low Literacy

Proceedings of the Annual Conference of CAIS / Actes du congrès annuel de l'ACSI ◽

10.29173/cais945 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Miraida Morales ◽

Sarah Barriage

Keyword(s):

Informed Consent ◽

Pilot Study ◽

Informed Consent Process ◽

Consent Process ◽

Measurement Tool ◽

Low Literacy ◽

Consent Forms ◽

Early Readers ◽

Research With Children ◽

Consentement Éclairé

This poster presents a pilot study that analyzed a small corpus of informed consent forms used in research with children, adolescents, and adult early readers using Coh-Metrix, a readability measurement tool. Recommendations for increasing readability of consent forms in order to improve the informed consent process are also provided. Cette affiche présente une étude pilote qui a analysé un corpus restreint de formulaires de consentement éclairé utilisés dans la recherche avec les enfants, les adolescents et les lecteurs précoces adultes, utilisant Coh-Metrix, un outil de mesure de la lisibilité. Nous fournissons également des recommandations pour augmenter la lisibilité des formulaires de consentement afin d'améliorer le processus de consentement éclairé.

Download Full-text

Anne O. Krueger, Constantine Michalopoulos and Vernon W. Ruttan. Aid and Development. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. 1989. xiv + 386 pp.Price: U.S. $ 52.00

The Pakistan Development Review ◽

10.30541/v30i2pp.213-217 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 30 (2) ◽

pp. 213-217

Author(s):

Mir Annice Mahmood

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Economic Development ◽

International Development ◽

Western Europe ◽

Development Assistance ◽

The United States ◽

Social Infrastructure ◽

Low Literacy ◽

The Subject ◽

The Impact

Foreign aid has been the subject of much examination and research ever since it entered the economic armamentarium approximately 45 years ago. This was the time when the Second World War had successfully ended for the Allies in the defeat of Germany and Japan. However, a new enemy, the Soviet Union, had materialized at the end of the conflict. To counter the threat from the East, the United States undertook the implementation of the Marshal Plan, which was extremely successful in rebuilding and revitalizing a shattered Western Europe. Aid had made its impact. The book under review is by three well-known economists and is the outcome of a study sponsored by the Department of State and the United States Agency for International Development. The major objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of assistance, i.e., aid, on economic development. This evaluation however, was to be based on the existing literature on the subject. The book has five major parts: Part One deals with development thought and development assistance; Part Two looks at the relationship between donors and recipients; Part Three evaluates the use of aid by sector; Part Four presents country case-studies; and Part Five synthesizes the lessons from development assistance. Part One of the book is very informative in that it summarises very concisely the theoretical underpinnings of the aid process. In the beginning, aid was thought to be the answer to underdevelopment which could be achieved by a transfer of capital from the rich to the poor. This approach, however, did not succeed as it was simplistic. Capital transfers were not sufficient in themselves to bring about development, as research in this area came to reveal. The development process is a complicated one, with inputs from all sectors of the economy. Thus, it came to be recognized that factors such as low literacy rates, poor health facilities, and lack of social infrastructure are also responsible for economic backwardness. Part One of the book, therefore, sums up appropriately the various trends in development thought. This is important because the book deals primarily with the issue of the effectiveness of aid as a catalyst to further economic development.

Download Full-text

ADVANCING ACCESS TO JUSTICE THROUGH GENERIC SOLUTIONS: THE RISK OF PERPETUATING EXCLUSION

Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice ◽

10.22329/wyaj.v31i1.4308 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 31 (1) ◽

pp. 1

Author(s):

Patricia Hughes

Keyword(s):

Access To Justice ◽

Legal Services ◽

Low Literacy ◽

Remote Areas

Recent reports about access to justice have focused on issues of affordability, with little reference to the differences of equity-seeking groups. They have tended to recommend “generic” solutions intended to help people represent themselves better and to access limited legal services that fail to consider characteristics that exclude people from using them effectively. The author argues that if factors such as low literacy or living in remote areas are not taken into account, generic solutions run the risk of perpetuating exclusion rather than increasing access to justice. Des rapports sur l’accès à la justice qui ont été publiés récemment s’intéressent principalement à la question de la capacité de payer et s’attardent peu aux différences au sein des groupes en quête d’équité. Ils tendent à recommander des solutions « génériques » pour aider les justiciables à mieux se représenter eux‑mêmes et à jouir d’un accès à des services juridiques limités qui ne tiennent pas compte des facteurs qui empêchent les gens d’utiliser ces services efficacement. L’auteure plaide que si des facteurs tels qu’une faible littératie ou le fait de résider dans une collectivité éloignée ne sont pas pris en compte, les solutions génériques risquent de perpétuer l’exclusion plutôt que d’améliorer l’accès à la justice.

Download Full-text

An Investigation of the Socio-Economic Benefits of Small-Scale Gold Mining in Malawi

Mining ◽

10.3390/mining1010003 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 19-34

Author(s):

Tiyamike Haundi ◽

Gift Tsokonombwe ◽

Steven Ghambi ◽

Theresa Mkandawire ◽

Ansley Kasambara

Keyword(s):

Gold Mining ◽

Indigenous Communities ◽

Economic Benefits ◽

Gold Rush ◽

Basic Knowledge ◽

Small Scale ◽

Low Literacy ◽

Policy Makers ◽

Key Stakeholders ◽

The Government

In the recent years, there has been a surge in artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) in various districts of Malawi. Reports of a gold rush have emerged in various districts, including Mangochi, Lilongwe, Balaka, and lately in Kasungu. There has been persistence by many indigenous communities participating in ASGM activities, yet little is being done by the government to formalize and support the sub-sector. The purpose of this study was to investigate the benefits of artisanal small-scale gold mining in Malawi and expose the shortfalls so that key stakeholders and policy makers are well informed. A quantitative approach which used semi-structured questionnaires was used and the data was analyzed using Microsoft excel and Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The study shows that ASGM is characterized by people with low literacy levels, who use traditional tools (low-tech) and use methods fueled by lack of capital, and deficiency of basic knowledge of mining and geology. The study found that the government could achieve substantial socio-economic development from the sector by: (1) revising the current artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) legislation so that it embraces the customary practices whilst safeguarding the environment and improving the tax collection base; (2) providing support in form of mining related training and education to these communities; (3) leading in transfer of modern technologies for improved extraction; (4) supporting ASM cooperatives in securing credit facilities from financial institutions; and (5) closing the existing knowledge gap for ASM related issues through introduction of mining desk officers in district councils.

Download Full-text

Disaster Literacy

Innovation in Aging ◽

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.2430 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. 694-694

Author(s):

Lisa Brown ◽

Lindsay Peterson

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Health Literacy ◽

Disaster Preparedness ◽

Research Data ◽

Literacy Skills ◽

Public Health Issue ◽

Low Literacy ◽

Social Marketing Campaign ◽

Life Saving ◽

Response And Recovery

Abstract People who plan ahead typically fare better during the response and recovery phases of a disaster. However, problems arise when the needs, wants, abilities, and resources of vulnerable people are not adequately considered. The lack of alignment between the literacy demands of existing materials and the literacy skills of many vulnerable subgroups limits their ability to understand and effectively use potentially life-saving information. Existing health literacy models that have demonstrated effectiveness in changing health behaviors and improving outcomes is a first step to reducing disaster-related morbidity and mortality in low resource and low literacy areas. This presentation will 1) describe how interdisciplinary collaborations can be used to address this public health issue, 2) explain how health literacy techniques can be applied when developing disaster materials, and 3) present research data on a social marketing campaign to improved disaster preparedness of older adults. Part of a symposium sponsored by Disasters and Older Adults Interest Group.

Download Full-text

Functional illiteracy and developmental dyslexia: looking for common roots. A systematic review

Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science ◽

10.1007/s41809-021-00074-9 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Réka Vágvölgyi ◽

Kirstin Bergström ◽

Aleksandar Bulajić ◽

Maria Klatte ◽

Tânia Fernandes ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Systematic Review ◽

Developmental Dyslexia ◽

Phonological Processing ◽

Empirical Studies ◽

Developed Countries ◽

Low Literacy ◽

Behavioral Profile ◽

Quantitative Studies ◽

Functional Illiteracy ◽

Basic Reading Skills

AbstractA considerable amount of the population in more economically developed countries are functionally illiterate (i.e., low literate). Despite some years of schooling and basic reading skills, these individuals cannot properly read and write and, as a consequence have problems to understand even short texts. An often-discussed approach (Greenberg et al. 1997) assumes weak phonological processing skills coupled with untreated developmental dyslexia as possible causes of functional illiteracy. Although there is some data suggesting commonalities between low literacy and developmental dyslexia, it is still not clear, whether these reflect shared consequences (i.e., cognitive and behavioral profile) or shared causes. The present systematic review aims at exploring the similarities and differences identified in empirical studies investigating both functional illiterate and developmental dyslexic samples. Nine electronic databases were searched in order to identify all quantitative studies published in English or German. Although a broad search strategy and few limitations were applied, only 5 studies have been identified adequate from the resulting 9269 references. The results point to the lack of studies directly comparing functional illiterate with developmental dyslexic samples. Moreover, a huge variance has been identified between the studies in how they approached the concept of functional illiteracy, particularly when it came to critical categories such the applied definition, terminology, criteria for inclusion in the sample, research focus, and outcome measures. The available data highlight the need for more direct comparisons in order to understand what extent functional illiteracy and dyslexia share common characteristics.

Download Full-text

Automated Text Simplification

ACM Computing Surveys ◽

10.1145/3442695 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 54 (2) ◽

pp. 1-36

Author(s):

Suha S. Al-Thanyyan ◽

Aqil M. Azmi

Keyword(s):

Reading Comprehension ◽

Information Content ◽

Evaluation Methods ◽

Extensive Study ◽

Low Literacy ◽

Essential Tool ◽

Text Simplification ◽

Over Time ◽

Original Information ◽

Research Studies

Text simplification (TS) reduces the complexity of the text to improve its readability and understandability, while possibly retaining its original information content. Over time, TS has become an essential tool in helping those with low literacy levels, non-native learners, and those struggling with various types of reading comprehension problems. In addition, it is used in a preprocessing stage to enhance other NLP tasks. This survey presents an extensive study of current research studies in the field of TS, as well as covering resources, corpora, and evaluation methods that have been used in those studies.

Download Full-text